Financial Sector Deepening Kenya (FSD Kenya) has worked since 2008 with CARE and, since August 2012, with CRS, to develop, test and perfect different models or channels for forming, training and supporting Savings Groups (SGs). In 2013, FSD Kenya commissioned the Quality of Delivery Study (QDS) which had four objectives:

Measure the outreach of SGs, both breadth – how many people are members of SGs, and depth – to what extent SGs are reaching the principal target population of poor and otherwise excluded people.

Determine the usefulness or valued added by SGs, and the extent to which the services they offer meet the wants and needs of members.

Answer questions about SGs and consumer protection: are SGs a safe and transparent place to save, or are they putting members at risk of losing their savings or being exploited in other ways?

Determine the relative outreach, value-added, and consumer-protection performance of the various delivery channels to help FSD Kenya tailor its investments to produce the best outcomes in terms of efficiency, sustainability and consumer protection.

In short, the QDS was designed to compare the SGs formed by the two international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) with each other, and with the many spontaneous or community-formed SGs.